Alongside Convivial Hermit, the new-ish Deserts Of Hex magazine ranks at the top of my list of premium underground journalism in hard-copy print form right now. It pains me that I totally snoozed on the first issue (anyone have a copy they wanna trade?), but the latest issue, Volume 2, is scratching just about all my itches. This incredible labor of love comes from the brains behind Radical Research, which consists of C-Blast buddy Hunter Ginn (Agalloch, Plague Psalm, Canvas Solaris, Gorging Shade, Sculptured, and on and on...) Thomas Nul, and the esteemed Jeff Wagner; the latter remains one of my favorite writers within the underground music / arts sphere, and amongst a ton of other accomplishments that have helped shape the contemporary extreme music field, authored the exception book Mean Deviations, which is still the best book on avant-garde and experimental metal that's been written so far. Seriously, if your tastes are anything like mine and you're a devotee of the weirder and more imaginative corners of heavy metal and adjacent forms, it's essential reading. There's a rack of other contributing writers for Deserts Of Hex, cream of the crop, and together the team has produced a killer collection of articles, art, and photography for the second issue that is high-quality from end to end.

The issue, presented in a perfect-bound square magazine format, touches on a host of fascinating subjects that'll be of interest for anyone into the darker arts. The first article from Thomas Nul is "Floating Into The Night: The Collaborative Works Of David Lynch, Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruise". In the sudden wake of Lynch's passing in January of 2025, this in-depth article couldn't be timelier. Nul does a deep dive, complete with extensive footnotes and annotation, into the confluence of these three legendary artists, examining the long history of their film and musical collaborations, delving down into the depths of Lynch's filmography and Badalamenti's background and how Cruise was part of the lightning in a bottle that produced their incredibly haunting songcraft and soundscapes. Deep analysis of their musical works and relations to the films, hitting on the experimental edge and avant-garde influences at the spiritual core of their music - it's one of the best Lynch-related musical research pieces I've ever read. Even as a longtime fan of all three of these artists, this article is loaded with information and insights that are totally new to me. Superb stuff

Ginn delivers "Tanner Anderson: A Conversation With The Musical Polyglot", an absorbing conversation with the prolific musician that discusses his work with a diverse and staggering roster of bands that includes Panopticon, Majesties, Celestiial, Crypt Sermon, Obsequiae, and more. The Minneapolis native discusses his history, the unique musical aesthetics of each project, and the nature of his craft, and is as great a primer to Anderson's work as you're going to find. Ginn and Ryan Madison collaborate on "Manifesto Of Nonfuturist Music", a thoughtful recommendation for approaching the contemporary underground music zeitgeist; it rings true to me, and the overarching concept at play is nicely communicated in the phrase "Nonfuturist music is a field recording of the eternal present.". Nul follows up with a detailed look at a specific era of death metal pioneers Incantation, "A Tale Of Two Thrones: The Story Of Incantation's Mortal Throne Of Nazarene (1994) and Upon The Throne Of The Apocalypse (1995) Through The Lens Of John Mcenree". It's exactly that, a discussion with founding member John McIntee that opens a window into the development of Incantation's particular strain of surrealistic, horrific death metal, the challenges the band faced during the recording processes, and the travails of McIntee guiding and cementing the direction of Incantation's sound. An excellent article rounded out by erudite reviews of the albums in question; I also dig the background info for Miran Kim, the Hellraiser comics artist whose disturbing, hallucinatory visual style helped to define the band's work throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Ginn also digs down into the 2012 album from the late avant-garde music legend Scott Walker with "Agon With The Mirror: Struggle And The Triumph Of Identity in Scott Walker's Bish Bosch", a long-form work on the album that explores just about every aspect of the record you can imagine. And then the issue is capped off with a colossal series of articles from Nul, Ginn, Forrest Pitts, Jeff Wagner and Paul Stolp on avant-garde French black metal iconoclasts Deathspell Omega. The intro draws interesting and compelling parallels between the band and the work of French philosopher Georges Batille, which leads into longer chronological analyses on Deathspell's catalog, staring with their 2004 masterwork Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice and proceeding through the subsequent 2005 discs Diabolus Absconditus / Mass Grave Aesthetics and Kenose, 2007's Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum, 2008's Chaining The Katechon, 2010's Paracletus, 2012's Drought, 2016's The Synarchy of Molten Bones, 2019's The Furnaces of Palingenesia, and 2022's The Long Defeat . Stretching well over forty pages, incredibly detailed and perceptive, these are scholarly and in-depth reviews of all of these albums, highly recommended reading for those intrigued by Deathspell Omega's philosophical underpinnings. It's amongst the best writing on the band I've read.

Light reading? Nah, Deserts Of Hex is serious writing on the assorted subject matter, and subsequently delivers incredibly important material (at least in my mind), providing historical, personal, musical, and philosophical context for material that is otherwise too-often ignored. It's topped off with a spare but beautiful graphic design that includes Ryan Madison's perfectly stark imagery and quotes from Andre Breton, Bruno Schulz, Jean Genet, Arthur Machen, and Austin Osman Spare...I feel like this zine was written for me. Exceptional work.